For Emma You rooted out of that murky darkness of womb on the last day of the month, July, when the California sky was heavy with drought, foothills scorched by the sun’s unflinching gaze. You slipped into the nurse’s arms just before the moon could resume its monthly swell, a reminder— levity, grace, an untarnished breath came to us in the form of 7 lbs., 2 oz., and a head, full of damp black hair. Dahlia Seroussi is a bilingual poet who hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her BA from the University of California Santa Cruz and is currently pursuing her MFA at Oregon State University. Her poems have appeared in Eleven Eleven Journal and Chinquapin, and her chapbook What I Know was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013.